Yesterday Sarah, Emily and I drove to the Pinnacles on a mini road trip! The Pinnacles desert is in Nambung National Park about 250 km north of Perth, so it was a pretty hefty drive for a day's activity but the roads were empty, save for a couple of road trains, so it was too easy. The roads were of the straight variety; one lane either side that stretch out ahead of you forever so you feel like you're driving to the edge of the world, and it was pretty hard to stick to the speed limit on such empty roads (of course I did though). The drive up was pretty green and we were wondering how we were soon going to be in the desert, but in the desert we ended up... bright orange coloured sand, and not much else, aside from the thousands of limestone pillars that are scattered across the desert. There's a 1.2 km circular walk you can do (no climbing on the pinnacles tho) or a 4km loop drive. We did both. It was surprisingly not that hot as there was a lovely breeze cooling us down but plenty of flies about to bug us.
Pre Pinnacles we had a lil' stop at Cervantes where the sand was whiter than white and the ocean was crystal clear. Post Pinnacles, faced with a low tank of petrol and the knowledge that there were no services for 70 km and a gas station selling petrol for $1.50 p/l 15 km in the other direction we opted to risk the 70 km to Lancelin. This choice gave me 30 mins of mild panic as i kept one eye on the petrol gauge whilst listening to my passengers kindly relaying stories of previous running out of petrol incidents BUT did save us a whole 5 cents a litre (they don't call me 'Cheapskates Fletcher' for nothing, y'know) when we eventually made it to Lancelin (ha! and the red light didn't even come on - what were we worried about). In Lancelin we stopped for refreshments and watched the kite surfers. 2 emus (in a field) and a few kangeroos ('sleeping' by the side of the road) later, we were back in perth. Yay for road trips!
